GSA does not respond

Summary: Search appliance is not responding to search requests, and/or not responding to ping.

Cause:

The search appliance can experience problems during its initial or subsequent startup, during the configuration process, or while it is running.

There are other environment factors to consider also, for example, if there are changes or problems occuring in networking (bad switch/cabling/config), DNS server, or sometimes load balancer.

Fix:

Going through the following steps may help you unearth the issue that's causing your observed problem, but if not, please contact your service provider and provide the collected information.

1. Try to use the simplest way to connect to the search appliance: use direct IP instead of hostname, in case of DNS or load balancer issues. Continue with this documentation to ensure there are no networking issues.

2. Check to see if there is any power or hardware related issue:

Question

Your Answer

What is the search appliance identification number (appliance ID)?

You can find the appliance ID on the label on the bezel of the search appliance.

Try to capture an image of your observation and provide it in the support request.

Can you hear fan noises?

Try using another known-good power cable and outlet?

Try draining the current out of the appliance, then restarting?

To drain the current, unplug the appliance power cords and hold the power button for 30 seconds or more.

3. Check to see if the search appliance boots up correctly:

Attach a keyboard and monitor to the appliance and record what you see on the monitor (e.g. take a picture). Sometimes due to hardware issues the boot up may be stuck somewhere, requiring a key press to continue; or it could be a mandatory disk checking after an event of hard reset to ensure data integrity.

4. Check if the operating system is behaving normally.

If the search appliance cannot serve or if the search appliance freezes, the symptoms might indicate an operating system freeze or crash. If you observe these symptoms, complete the following checklist and contact your technical support provider.

Question

Your Answer

When did the search appliance stop serving?

Can you ping the search appliance from another computer

Can you connect to the Admin Console on port 8000 or 8443, or to the Version Manager on port 9941 or 9942?

If you see an error, what is the error?

5. Typically we do not recommend rebooting/resetting to attempt to remedy the issue. This may cause logs/data to be lost and that will prevent root cause anaylsis. However, for urgent scenarios, you may try to soft reboot. With a keyboard and monitor connected to the Search Appliance, try to capture any errors during this process, and then Ctrl+Alt+Del to soft reboot the device.